Are blogs breaking the internet? Some thoughts.

Sinead Cochrane posted a question asking if blogs were borking the web, and followed up with a questionnaire about the navigability of blogs. Reading her post and doing the survey got me thinking a little…

We bloggers get so used to blogs, we sometimes can’t see the wood for the trees, and forget that there are plenty of internet users out there who may not distinguish between a web page and a blog, but simply between pages they can find their way around and pages they can’t.

You should go and complete Sinéad’s survey, and then come back if you like and read through my comments that the questions inspired.

Q1: On a scale of 1 to 5 how easy do you think navigating a blog is? (i.e. Finding information, moving around the site)

I can usually navigate a blog quite easily, but I appreciate that I’ve been blogging a long time, and am very familiar with the interfaces of popular blogging platforms. And to be honest, usually I will use the search feature if there is one present.

Often though, there is simply no requirement to navigate a blog.

The average internet user may be more aware of blogs now due to their proliferation, but most users turn to the internet for information and don’t make any distinctions between types of pages – the information is either there or it isn’t.

If your blog does not lead users to further information they are interested in, they won’t even attempt to navigate. In my experience bounce rates on blogs are very high. Most traffic will arrive at a blog through long tail google searches, scan the page and either find what they are looking for and leave, or realise it’s not what they were looking for and leave.

Improving the stickiness of a blog design is an artform, and one that is hard to master. However, it is somewhat easier if you have a highly focussed blog, for example a business blog which is designed for one purpose and attracts traffic of a specific nature for a narrow field of search words and search terms.

Defining the goal of your blog, and it’s purpose within your larger website (or general web strategy) will certainly help you implement a design strategy which can help guide users where you want them to go next on your blog/site.

Q2 On a scale of 1 to 5 how important is it to you that a blog is easy to navigate?

Taking the above thoughts into consideration, from a users perspective it is often not important that a blog be easy to navigate, because often they are not looking for anything other than the information contained in a single blog post.

personally, if a blog really captures my imagination I will add it to my RSS reader and occasionally notice something of interest there again through the RSS feeds.

That doesn’t mean that blogs shouldn’t strive to be navigable though – from a blog owners perspective the navigation should aim to be as simple as possible and lead me to the next desired page or action. From the owners perspective you presumably want people to stick around, have a nose around and preferably come back soon!

Q3. Do you prefer navigating a webpage or a blog?

It’s true, often a well laid out website will be so much easier to navigate than the murky logic of categories or tags, particularly when you take into consideration blogs which do not even clearly identify tags or categories, but simply dump them in the sidebar somewhere!

However, there’s no real reason a blog shouldn’t be easy to navigate, it just takes a little more attention to the design of the template. We sometimes don’t see the wood for the trees, and don’t put the effort in to make it as simple and understandable as possible.

Q4. On a scale of 1 to 5 how important is it to you that the overall design of a blog is visually appealing?

Oooh, this is an interesting one. I would say it is important to me, Sabrina Dent’s blog, for example originally caught my eye due to it’s appealing design and ever since I check back regularly – however though the design caught my eye, if the content did not deliver I would soon abandon the blog.

However, then you have a blog like Damien Mulley’s, another blog I visit regularly, and yet he has an out of the box WordPress template for his design. Does that bother me? not at all.

Just recently I was involved in a project which replaced an out of the box design for a new blog with a prettier custom design. Early analysis would suggest that the bounce rate decreased and pageviews went up after the new design was implemented.

Unscientific conjecture? Over time you can establish yourself as an authority with a standard blog design, but a more appealing custom design may help you get a headstart if you’re a new blog on the block!

Q5. On a scale of 1 to 5 how important is it to you that the CONTENT of a blog post is visually appealing?

Very important – unless of course I read the blog via an RSs reader, in which case it’s not at all important how the content is styled on the web

However I would argue that you want to retain as many readers as possible, in all possible formats – so clear, clean and legible presentation is of great importance. Pretty pictures etc help, but legible font sizes and good use of space are vital.

In Summary

Overall I agree with Sinéad that blogs often neglect the casual internet user, who may not be familiar with the concepts behind a blog. Too many assumptions are made in standard blog templates that users understand the linear or reverse chronological nature of blogs.

We should strive for clarity and simplicity in blog designs and make the interfaces as intuitive or explanatory as possible.

It is important to bear in mind what the purpose of your blog is when designing your template, so that you can guide your users where you want them to go next.

Remember the nature of the majority of blog traffic is fairly transient and do what you can, where possible and without affecting the integrity of your blog, to increase the stickiness of your blog.

Even if a unique and attractive blog template is beyond your reach for now, make sure your content is clear and legible.

What do you reckon?

If you haven’t already, please go and do Sinéad’s survey, and if you have any thoughts on these matters, leave a comment on Sinéad’s blog, or here!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.